


Stereogram

by NyxieBlack



Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League Dark (Comics), Shade the Changing Man (Comics)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Fight Scene, Gen, Not Shippy, Teeth, cw alcohol, cw death mention, especially with constantine, i honestly have no idea what he was up to in n52, johnny'll show in ch2 btw, kinda graphic electric chair shenanigans, new 52 jld
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2019-10-30 00:32:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17818418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxieBlack/pseuds/NyxieBlack
Summary: Rac Shade has a bad night at the bar and Constantine has to bail him out. Which is easier said than done, really, seeing as Shade wakes up in Hell.Takes place after the events of issue six of N52 Justice League Dark, and let’s pretend they had downtime between six and seven, okay? Enjoy!Named after the song by The Vincent Black Shadow





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First off, massive thanks to @dragon_anony and @floralroyal on twitter for edits! <3

The Oblivion Bar. Secreted away in a pocket dimension, it was the closest thing the magic community had to neutral ground. An oasis away from their oftentimes universe-shaking squabbles. Laughter and conversation floated through the air—some speaking languages assumed dead for millenia, snatches of backwards English, some in codes only intelligible by the person being spoken to, if one could differentiate it in the din. At the bar slouched a man, alone. A Changing Man. 

The past week had been a rough one for Rac Shade, although that was typical for him. Kathy melting in front of his eyes, Kathy screaming for help, Kathy trying to destroy him (he deserved it he knew he deserved it why couldn’t he have her back why couldn’t he save her--) 

_No. Can’t fall into that spiral._ He took a swig of his drink. The Oblivion Bar was the only place easily accessible from Earth that had Metan alcohol, to his pleasant surprise. All the effects, no hangover. Generally, he’d just use the power of Madness to manipulate his body chemistry enough to simulate what it was like to be drunk, but with the M-Vest on the fritz, he was trying to avoid anything to do with Madness. 

“Hey, Shade, I got an idea.” 

Shade abruptly straightened, glancing around to see if anyone was paying attention. “Can’t you wait until we’re alone, Vest?” he hissed. No one was reacting. Shade guessed this was the one bar where disembodied voices wouldn’t cause a stir. 

“Not when time is of the essence! Say, instead of throwing yourself a pity party, why don’t you, y’know, play the field? Kathy’s not coming back anytime soon and you’re real boring when you mope.” 

Shade’s reply was sullen silence. Maybe it would be nice to not spend the night alone. He let his eyes drift over the other patrons. There were some familiar faces. People he had seen on a supermarket magazine cover, on a TV in one of a million identical hotel rooms scattered across the United States. Shade wasn’t a shut-in by any means, he just didn’t cross paths with other…magic users? Shade supposed magic was what the M-Vest was, but the line between science and magic back on Meta was much thinner than on Earth. 

Words floated to the front of his mind, the way they do after prolonged alcohol consumption. A snatch of a poem— _You’re in love. Taken til the month of August./You’re in love.—Your sonnets make her smile._ Shade wasn’t drunk enough to think that love was in the cards for him that night, but the idea of being with someone who probably wouldn’t turn into an animated corpse was a nice one. And that was when he made eye contact with Zatanna Zatara. 

* * *

Zatanna was out with one Dinah Lance that night. It had been a while since the two had caught up, and when Zatanna asked her where she wanted to go for the night, Dinah said “I dunno. Someplace different.” So The Oblivion Bar it was. 

The two were having a fine time, seated in an out-of-the-way booth. There was been a bit of a lull in the conversation when Dinah had asked Zee what was going on with her and that Constantine guy—she didn’t want to get into it, and Dinah sensed that it was a whole can of worms she’d better not open. She snuck a quick peek at her phone (a text from Ollie. That could wait.), looked up, and saw Zee smiling at someone. It looked to Dinah like one of those default smiles you throw around when you recognize someone. And then her smile faded, her eyes widened, and her expression shifted to a what-have-I-done look. 

Dinah followed her friend’s eyes to the stranger on his way over. Tonight was either about to get really entertaining or really uncomfortable. “Who’s that? He’s got a nice jacket.” she remarked. 

“Shade. You know that guy I kissed the other day? That’s him.” 

Dinah’s eyebrows shot up. She opened her mouth to say something. 

“Hello, Zatanna,” Shade greeted her. “Is this seat taken?” His speech was slightly slurred, and he had an accent Dinah couldn’t quite place—and she was good at placing accents. New England? No, that wasn’t it. 

“Please, sit down.” Dinah scooched over to let Shade in on her side. Dinah wasn’t about to leave her friend with some guy she obviously wasn’t comfortable with, even if Shade didn’t seem threatening. He sat in a way that made him seem smaller than he was, even though he was nowhere near as big as a lot of the guys at the bar that night. “I’m Dinah. You are?” 

“Shade,” he replied. 

“Shade, how are you doing?” Zatanna put on her breeziest, most sexless voice—the same voice Dinah had heard her use when entertaining at children’s birthday parties. 

“As absurd as usual,” he replied with a casualness that Dinah found vaguely unnerving. 

“Any examples you’d be willing to share?” Dinah pried, taking a sip of her beer. 

“Hmmm….” Shade’s brows knit together. “This morning I decided to go to the library. I thought it was maybe boredom and curiosity that drew me there, but it seems there’s a doorway to the Madness in the fiction section, on page 36 of an Edgar Allan Poe book. I tried to access it, but I filled the library with feathers instead.” Magic stuff? Welp, Dinah was lost. 

“Raven feathers?” Zatanna replied. 

“If not that, then maybe they were the feathers of celestials,” said Shade. He seemed to place a little too much emphasis on the word “celestials,” and Dinah couldn’t help but notice his gaze was locked on Zee. 

“Yeah, mighta been,” Dinah interjected. Dinah was planning on teasing Zee about this later, but for now? She was going to make herself as much of a third wheel as possible. An anti-wing woman, if you will. 

Not that Shade was picking up on that; He was still staring intently at Zatanna. The conversation plodded on, Dinah cutting in occasionally with comments that were probably useless, but whatever. Her intention was to remind this guy that she was still there and that flirting might not be the best idea right now. But as the moments turned to minutes, Dinah felt her attention waning more and more. Zee seemed to be holding her own pretty well, carefully sidestepping any interaction that might be interpreted as romantic interest on her part. 

That didn’t mean Shade stopped pressing the issue. “The saps champagne and blurs every feature…You feel a kiss on your lips.” _Holy crap, he’s quoting poetry now_ , Dinah thought. 

“Shade, you’re—” Zatanna started. 

_Time to bail!_ , thought Dinah. “Scooch.” She tapped Shade on the shoulder. As Shade let her out of the booth, she turned to Zatanna. “Zee, we gotta leave or we’ll miss the show.” 

“Oh, yeah!” Zatanna went along with Dinah’s lie. She slid out of the booth. On her feet, she looked at Shade. “Look, Shade, you’re a nice guy, but I’m not interested in anything outside of a purely professional relationship. Anyways, it was nice seeing you tonight. Take care!” With that, she and Dinah escaped. 

* * *

Shade slunk back to the bar, feeling defeated. Why did he think that was a good idea? And what about Kathy? (She had to be out there, somewhere. The thought of her being gone forever—because of him—would drive him madder than the M-Vest ever could). 

A few drinks and a lot of self-pity later, and Shade’s face was pressed to the cool marble of the bar top, which felt like it was rocking back and forth, like a boat. A fish swam into his vision, but he was too drunk to think it odd. So many odd things happened around him. 

The barkeep grumbled something about the beer having turned to salt water. 

As for Shade, he was seriously considering spending the night as a painting—or maybe a floor?—when a smug-sounding stranger approached him. 

“I have never seen such a pathetic display,  
“After rejection for a night risqué.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for part 2, which I've already started!  
> Also, the poem Shade is stuck on in this chapter is Romance by Arthur Rimbaud, which can be found here: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/French/Rimbaud1.php#anchor_Toc196916298


	2. Kathy George Smokes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to @Dragon_Anony on twitter once again, for helping me out with a specific scene here <3  
> Anyways, I made a lot of assumptions about the Oblivion Bar in this chapter that may or may not be backed up in canon, but I'm gonna try to not be too worried about that

3 AM. Greenwich Village, New York City. A little shop by the name of Xanadu, easily missed if you’re not looking for it, but if you are—then you have found yourself in strange circumstances. 

John Constantine was no stranger to strange circumstances. 

“No. Absolutely not. Get Deadman on this. It's easier for him to get from here to there, and he has less at stake anyhow.” 

“You know as well as me, John, that you are the best man for the job,” Madame Xanadu replied. “Besides, the cards say—” 

“I’ll tell you where you can stick those bloody cards!” 

“Enough! You need to fetch Shade.” If this team thing was going to work out, Madame Xanadu needed complete cooperation from everyone, especially from Constantine. 

He opened his mouth. To make some smart remark, no doubt. 

Madame Xanadu continued, “No excuses. Shade’s power resides on the border between magic and science. The cards refuse to say what he is capable of, and I doubt he knows either. If we allow him to fall into the wrong hands--.” 

“Widespread death and destruction, yeah? Fine, I’ll do it, but don’t expect me to be happy about it.” Not that Constantine was ever happy about having someone else call the shots. 

“You’d best be on your way, then. I’m sure we would both rather this be done with sooner rather than later.” 

Constantine scowled at her. He could swear she had the hint of a smirk on her lips as he left the shop, letting the door slam behind him. 

Hell. Constantine had been to Hell a few times before, and he wasn’t keen on visiting again. There were certainly a handful of demons who would be glad to have his head on a pike. At least a couple of those were big names down below. 

“Lousy fortuneteller,” he grumbled to himself, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

* * *

Shade woke to the sound of a shower running, the stench of rotten eggs, and the slippery memory of meeting a great poet. He rolled over and groggily took in his surroundings. Well, this wasn’t a motel room. He seemed to be lying on his stomach on a stain-speckled couch. The room itself was a wreck. Dirty dishes, discarded underwear, stacks of rhyming dictionaries, cardboard boxes full of odds and ends—were those hundreds of presidential campaign buttons?—assorted knives, swords, crossbows. The one thing that hung on the wall was a dartboard, and taped to it was a photograph of a man in a smart turtleneck, with a single white streak snaking through his red hair. The darts themselves were lodged in the picture’s eyes. 

The white noise of the shower stopped, and into the room walked a hulking, yellow demon, wearing nothing but a bath towel. 

“I hope you had a good wallow  
With the excessive drink you swallow.  
Now, you louse--  
Do me a favor and get out of my house.”  


A great poet, indeed. 

* * *

Constantine preferred any run-down London pub to the homey Oblivion Bar, but he had a hunch that the tavern would be a good place to head before attempting any go-straight-to-hell, do-not-pass-go rituals. Because the Oblivion Bar existed in its own little pocket dimension, it was an in-between space. There, the membrane separating the planes of existence might be more easily brushed away. 

Constantine entered the building and knew he had already stumbled onto Shade’s trail—the Oblivion Bar looked like a war zone from Toon Town. Among the chaos was water pouring forth from the beer taps and into a never-filling bucket beneath, the mirror behind the bar reflecting a completely different room, and pool balls zig-zagging across the floor of their own volition, only to be smashed by Blue Devil with a pool cue. Constantine didn’t recall the full transcript of the tape incriminating Nixon being scrawled in large print across the hardwood floors being there before, but it was a nice touch. The place was less crowded than any other time Constantine had been, which hadn’t been more than a handful. Constantine tended to avoid other magic-users. Most of them were too stuffy for his tastes. 

“Constantine, stop standing around and help us out, wouldja?” That’s when a chimp in a sports jacket and deerstalker cap thrust a mop into Constantine’s hands. 

“Detective Chimp, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen your hairy face.” 

“Save the charm for a different monkey and get to mopping if you want to stay,” Chimp snapped back. 

Constantine leaned against the mop like it was a walking stick. “How did it get like this in here, anyways? I was under the impression this was an upright establishment.” He noticed Traci 13 testing dish towels, tossing them into one pile or the other. 

Chimp replied, “Not in the mood. Some guy I’ve never seen before came in and started drinking like a fish. Stuff starts acting funny. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out he was the one doing it. Stole my seat, too. Then Etrigan shows up--” _Of course it was Etrigan_ , Constantine thought. ”--and everything goes straight to hell…No pun intended. Anyways, Jim’s trying to unravel whatever magic that guy did, but it might take a while. Says he’s never seen anything like it." Traci wiped the table in front of her with a towel—it made color-changing streak on the table—and threw it in the pile to her right. 

Constantine played at politeness. “Mind if I take a smoke break?” 

“Whatever. Just don’t do it in here.” 

“I’ll blow it out the window,” Constantine replied, letting the mop clatter to the ground. He started making a beeline to the men’s room. 

“This place doesn’t have any—” The men’s room door swung shut behind Constantine. The loo seemed unaffected by whatever Shade had unleashed, but Constantine sensed there was a _betweenness_ that was stronger here, like an itch in the back of his skull. 

Constantine lit up a cigarette and set to work. There was one stall in particular where the membrane separating here and there felt the thinnest and drawing a magic circle on a toilet seat was as good a place as any. A few candles for mood, a circle drawn with a tube of lipstick someone left in the House of Mystery’s bathroom, invoke the names of a couple minor demons desperate for attention, and a splash of blood for good measure. 

The floor beneath the toilet crumbled away. The toilet itself fell backwards, down a worn set of stone steps that had materialized, tumbling bowl over tank into the darkness. A hot, sulfurous wind blew out of the new passageway. Hell was welcoming back old Johnny Constantine. 

* * *

Etrigan wasn’t a gracious host, and Shade found himself unceremoniously kicked out of the demon’s apartment. 

_So, this is Hell_ , Shade thought to himself, looking at the yawning pits of lava in the distance. It didn’t feel like the Area of Madness, no. The Area of Madness was a dizzying unreality. A balloon let go and forgotten about. Hell felt brutally, unmistakably, unquestionably real. A rock tied to your ankle and dragging you down. It was quiet. Had the sky always been that close? That weighted down? Did the air always taste like burnt fear? Shade decided to start walking forward. Not much else to do in this situation. Move forward, maybe find a doorway to the Madness, and get out of here. How did Shade know what burnt fear tasted like? Didn’t matter. He knew. 

Shade trudged onwards, the sound of the ground crunching under his feet his only company. It was hot. He could see black smoke rising on the horizon. This was all real. He felt like his coat was getting heavier the longer he went on. The itching from his stubble growing in was getting more and more annoying. 

The lava pits in the distance glowed red and orange and yellow and didn’t seem to be getting any closer. The ground underfoot seemed to be getting less and less solid, like he was walking on gravel. How long had he been walking now? Ten, fifteen, thirty minutes? Forward, forward. He hated the way sticky sweat was making his hair cling to the back of his neck. Alone with his thoughts, which were turning more and more to Kathy, to self-loathing, to every last criticism Lenny had of him, to how she was always right. It got old fast. 

“Vest, you there?” Shade needed someone to talk to, even if he suspected that someone was a humorously rude projection of his id. The response Shade got was silence. Great. 

The crunching of his every step forward was starting to grate. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. What was that? Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Is that a voice? Crunch. Crunch. Is that a voice he recognized? 

Shade stopped walking. He heard someone talking in the distance, but he couldn’t pick out which direction it was coming from. A second voice started speaking. It was Kathy. His perfect Kathy. She sounded angry. The first voice returned. This time Shade recognized it as his own voice. He was angry. This was an argument. 

That’s right. They did fight when she was alive, didn’t they? He and his perfect Kathy. He could hear a huskiness in her voice gained from years of smoking. Why had he never remembered that? He found himself crashing to his knees. The voices were yelling. They were yelling at each other. He was yelling at her. This didn’t make sense. He had the memories, yes, he knew every word quietly screaming in the distance came out of their mouths. But he felt his insides twist. It didn’t make _sense_. 

Shade hung his head. His vision swam, but it didn’t matter. The only thing to look at was the ground. The ground. The gravel. Shade saw a tooth. And another tooth. And another and another until he realized he was kneeling in a sea of human teeth. 

He felt something yank him by the ankle, dragging him down, down into the darkness. He gasped for air. His mouth filled with teeth. 

He wished he was in the Area of Madness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Oh I saw you every time I closed my eyes/In the Hughes film I had scored, produced, and starred in in my mind/I could recite you, well, I'd written every line/But you strayed far from my flawless script on which I'd spent a lifetime."--Veronica Sawyer Smokes, AFI
> 
> (What, if I'm not gonna be self-indulgent, who will be self-indulgent for me? Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Once again, critiques and comments welcome)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks once again to @dragon_anony on twitter for her keen eye!
> 
> Also, I’m not sure what to cw this with, but if you are bothered by depictions of methods of execution or descriptions of panic attacks (on top of talking about stuff like death and Hell and alcohol, of course) be aware that that’s coming up.
> 
> I wrote a lot of this while listening to Candlemass, so if you wanna pop on some sweet sweet doom metal, I'll certainly approve ;)

This was a corner of Hell with which John Constantine was unfamiliar. Behind him, the staircase he had used had disappeared, leaving him stranded in a long, stone corridor. There seemed to be two ways to go—forward and back—and if his previous wanderings in Hell held true, there was probably little difference between the two. So, he started forward. The brick used for the walls looked worn and weathered, like the walls of a castle built generations ago. This was in harsh contrast to the pipes overhead. As Constantine traveled further into this corridor, the pipes slinked and slithered above, many of them leaking. Constantine could already feel the liquid—he hoped it was water--dripping into his shoes, soaking into his socks. If he got trench foot from this, he was sending the bill to Shade, he decided. 

It was hot down there. Maybe if the temperature dropped quite a few degrees, the corridor could be considered dank, but at that moment it was oppressively humid. After a handful of meters, Constantine unstuck himself from his trusty trench coat. A slip of paper fluttered out of one of the pockets as he slung the well-worn coat over his shoulder. Catching it, he unfolded it, reading, 

_John,_  
_Here to see an old friend?_  
_You’re welcome,_  
_Ellie_  


Ah. So, it was her who granted him passage. Constantine wasn’t in any mood to see that particular succubus again. The two hadn’t been on the best of terms last time they parted, to put it lightly. Not that he didn’t feel a twinge of guilt about taking advantage of her kindness to make off with some of her power. It’s just that Constantine kept busy. He tried not to have time for guilt. There was too much for him to feel guilty about after all, and what did sitting around, throwing a pity party achieve? Fuck all. That didn’t keep it from descending on him in the wee hours of the morning, wearing the faces of the dead and the damned, each and every wrongdoing weighing down on him, like stones on his chest, pressing the air out of him. He had to keep busy. 

He hoped there would be time to worry about Ellie later. For now, he had to track down Shade. He kept trekking forward. The corridor hadn’t connected to anything yet, no doors or windows or convenient holes, it just went on and on in the one direction. Constantine was on the verge of giving up on walking and resorting to magicking a way out when he saw a ladder, in the middle of the corridor, stretching upwards to a manhole, the pipes above twisting out of its way. 

So, Constantine slipped back into his trench coat and began to climb the ladder. 

* * *

Shade smacked back-first into the hard rock ground. He would probably wind up with bruises later, and maybe a cut or two, but nothing was broken. The stalactites above told him he was in a cave somewhere. Maybe underground, but Shade wasn’t sure how bendable things like location were in Hell. Just because he fell through a pit of teeth to get there didn’t necessarily mean he was underground. 

As he shifted himself to a standing position, Shade heard a voice from behind him say, “Shade, is it?” 

He turned and was greeted by the sight of an effortlessly beautiful woman. She smiled at him, burgundy lips parting to reveal teeth the color of eggshells. She continued, “I’m Chantinelle, but some people call me Ellie. Feel free to call me whichever you prefer.” There was something in her contralto voice that made Shade feel at ease. He had the feeling he could forget he was in the kingdom of the damned entirely, if he stuck close by her. The surroundings helped. It may have been a cave, but Ellie made the best of it. A shag rug, a plush bed, a large and cozy-looking armchair, dried flowers on the walls and other bits and bobs made the place feel homey, in contrast with Etrigan’s slovenly living style. 

The events of last night were coming back to Shade, slowly but surely. He remembered Etrigan ordering a round of an Earth drink called a “trash can”. He remembered being on his hands and knees in the bathroom, praying to the porcelain god while Etrigan held his hair and spoke in rhyme at him. Shade couldn’t recall exactly what was said. He was way too out of it by that point to differentiate between insults and art. Shade remembered leaving the bar, half-singing and half-yelling a pre-Laser folk song, one arm slung around the demon as the pair stumbled to the demon’s apartment. At least Shade didn’t take claim to the title of “Messiah” this time. 

“Do you need something to drink?” Ellie continued. “Coffee? Tea?” 

“Um,” Shade started. “Neither. Nothing, but thank you.” 

Ellie laughed in response. She had a resonant laugh, like bells. “Too smart to eat or drink anything in Hell, right?” She flipped her hair over one shoulder. She had long, thick hair. “Don’t worry. I’m not one of those demons who will keep you here if you have a couple pomegranate seeds.” 

Shade found himself getting lost in her eyes. She had big, serious eyes. Kind, but with a sadness underneath. Like Kathy’s. No, had to bury that. Couldn’t be thinking about that now. “Coffee, then. Thank you,” Shade replied, looking down. Huh, she wore sneakers. 

“Here you go,” she said, holding a plain white mug filled with the dark liquid out to him. She hadn’t made a move to get it, but rather seemed to have conjured it from thin air. “And, please, sit.” She gestured to the armchair. The cushions looked well-worn and inviting. “I’m waiting on a mutual friend.” 

Shade held the mug with both of his hands, feeling the warmth of it, and collapsed into the chair. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was. “Mutual friend? Who?” Shade guessed Etrigan would be the only person the two of them would know, but Etrigan coming back didn’t seem likely. 

Ellie perched on the bed, sitting crisscross, staring at him, chin resting on her hand. Her nails were filed to points. “Please, a lady needs to have a few mysteries.” There was a slight smile on her lips. “Just trust me. Nothing bad will happen to you.” She winked. Those eyes. Shade wondered if she would be impressed with Rimbaud. He took a sip of coffee. It tasted burnt and watered down, like the coffee of a greasy spoon diner at 3 AM, several miles away from anywhere you wanted to be. It wasn’t good, but it was familiar. Maybe she preferred Tennyson? 

But what about Kathy? Shade dropped the mug, feeling the hot liquid splash onto the skin of his leg. He doubled over, hugging himself tightly. The M-Vest shuddered and sparked against his skin. No, not now. The vest couldn’t malfunction now. His vision spotted over with bright colors. His torso felt like it was trying to flip itself inside out. His body was trying to writhe, but his hands and feet were bound to the chair with tight leather cuffs. Shade felt the hard wood at his back as his body jerked around wildly. He heard someone screaming before he realized the sound was coming from himself. 

* * *

Pushing aside the manhole cover, Constantine found himself not climbing onto a street, but into a hotel room. He heaved himself out of the hole and onto the sickly mustard carpet of the bedroom. It wasn’t the worst hotel room he had ever been in—the lack of blood and maggots and detached limbs of unclear origin meant it didn’t even crack the bottom five—but the odor of mold and the stains on the brown walls weren’t welcoming. 

That’s when Constantine felt Madness brush against his mind. It wasn’t like the gut feeling of tracking down the ideal spot to smash open a portal to Hell. Rather, this reminded him of those first few years on his own, an ex-patient of the Ravenscar Secure Hospital. This felt like the first few hints of an oncoming panic attack. This was his senses taking in a little too much, his heart beating a little too fast, electricity crackling through his brain a little more than it should. 

He assumed it was just a panic attack at first, too. They didn’t happen nearly as much as they used to, maybe once per six months. He sat himself on the edge of the bed, squeezed his eyes shut, tried to breathe through it. Inhale, _one, two, three, four,_ exhale, _five, six, seven, eight,_ inhale, _one, two, three, four, exhale, five, six, seven, eight._ It wasn’t working. Constantine started mentally running through spells he had memorized. Snatches of Latin, what ingredients went with what. It was when that failed, too, without him falling into the throes of a full-blown panic attack, that he realized it was Madness, not his psyche. He assumed that meant he was on the right track. Lucky him. 

He stood up, shaky but still in one piece. Capital-M Madness was something he used to be able to differentiate from his own, private, lowercase-m madness, back when he was in Ravenscar. It was the easily confused difference between the external and the internal. Between the screaming idiosyncrasies of the zeitgeist and the dips and folds and curls and weird of one’s own brain. 

But now that he knew what he was dealing with, he knew how to use it. He couldn’t teleport with it, and he certainly couldn’t use it to create tangible illusions, but if there was one thing he learned while trying to pass time in the old asylum, it was how to poke and prod it until it gave him the information he needed.

_Dowsing should do the trick,_ he thought, pulling a crystal on a chain from his coat pocket. Constantine gave it a flick, and the crystal hovered before him, pulling the chain taut, gently yanking him towards the door out of the hotel room. 

“After you,” Constantine said to no one in particular, turning the door knob and letting the door drift open. Constantine then entered a long hallway, shut doors on each side, standing sentinel. There was nothing especially interesting about the same walls, the same carpet. He came to a large staircase, leading him down to the main floor. Another hallway, past the reception desk, and into the dining room he went. 

The dining room had all the standard trappings. A large table was set in the middle, and it looked like it expected guests. Wine glasses at all the seats but one. The food looked barely edible, and that wasn’t taking into account the shards of glass Constantine saw glittering within. The shards of glass came from the room’s most eye-catching attribute—its looming, shattered window, which filled him with a sense of nostalgia. He brushed it off as a side effect of the Madness. After all, this hotel was entirely unfamiliar to him.

The crystal led him to the window, and Constantine followed, glass crunching underfoot. It then fell, the chain in his hand keeping it from falling to the ground. The crystal then shivered. It spun around, and then started yanking, hard, back towards the door to the hallway, and back to the staircase. Upstairs, and back down the same hallway. One of the doors was open this time, though. The crystal wanted to head that way, but Constantine noticed another door that was different from the last time he had crossed this hallway and stopped in front of it. Painted on the wood of the door was the image of a knife, in quick, violent, blood red brushstrokes. Before he thought better of it, Constantine was testing the doorknob. Locked. That’s when he came to himself, remembered he was in Hell, and counted himself lucky that that lapse in self-control didn’t result in a lost hand, at the very least. 

Constantine turned his attention to the room the crystal beckoned him to. This one looked lived in, from the mussed linens on the bed and the leather jacket thrown onto the desk chair. He glanced into the washroom as the crystal dragged him to the nightstand. He could see the usual toiletries. Makeup, a bottle of hair bleach, toothpaste. It was the opened box for a pregnancy test that caught his eye. But back to the small table—the crystal was pulling harder and harder in that direction. Constantine’s hand was trembling from trying to keep his grip on the chain. On the nightstand, next to a squat table lamp, on top of a brown accordion folder, sat a grey book. The crystal was pointing at the book, there was no question of it. Constantine ended the spell, before the chain sliced open his skin. He returned the crystal to his pocket. He picked up the book, flipping it open. 

He felt the room shudder around him before he could read more than a couple words of the handwritten text within. He heard a boom and felt pure heat smash into his back. He turned around, greeted by a wall of flame. Constantine, clutching the book to his chest, stumbled back against the wall, shoving aside the nightstand as much as he could. The base of the lamp shattered as it hit the ground. There wasn’t any escaping the fire. It was too fast, too sudden. Licked its way up Constantine’s legs, catching on his clothes, pulling its way up and up and up until he was entirely engulfed in flames.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos and critique all appreciated! Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! Hope you like!
> 
> As always, many thanks to @dragon_anony on twitter for her insightful feedback!

Emotional. Erratic. Errant. Any of these words could be used to describe Rac Shade. Ellie knew what she was getting into when she invited him in, gave him coffee, gave him a spot to put up his feet. She knew without a shadow of a doubt she hadn’t a clue what would happen. So why wouldn’t her favorite comfy chair turn into an electric one? And why wouldn’t her house guest attempt to self-destruct? 

Shade’s screams were amplified by the stone walls of Ellie’s cave. She had witnessed the perverse ritual of death by electric chair only once before, but once was enough to know that lightning wasn’t supposed to arc off the victim’s body like that. And it wasn’t normal for kaleidoscopic patterns to shine forth from the chair, splashing onto walls with hallucinatory abandon. The screaming, blood vessels bursting beneath skin dyed red, the smoke and smell of burning flesh, though, that was normal. 

_Shit,_ thought Ellie. _Shit shit shit._

Shade was her main bargaining chip. Yes, she needed him to get Constantine’s attention, but if that failed, then his was an interesting soul, good for barter. Without him, she was adrift without a plan. She shielded her eyes against the radiance bursting forth from Shade. His screams bore into her eardrums. She knew that beneath the hood of the chair, his eyes were bulging forth from his sockets. Maybe fifteen seconds passed, maybe thirty, maybe a minute. For her, it was as if time had simultaneously sped up and slowed down. 

The screaming petered out. Strangled sounds forced their way out of Shade’s throat before silence seeped in. The lightning stopped. He was slumped over, his torso—that vest?—still emitting a bright, white light. Still leaking meaningless shapes and patterns. It hurt to look, but that didn’t matter, because she didn’t have much time before a very singed John Constantine was hurled forth, emerging from Shade himself. 

Ellie was thrown back into the bed, her and Constantine a mess of limbs. 

“Hello, John,” Ellie said, looking at the stone above over Constantine’s shoulder. “Was wondering when you’d join us.” 

Constantine rolled off her and coughed. “Long time no see, luv.” 

Constantine took in his surroundings as he rose to his feet. It was cozy, as far as a cave somewhere in the pits of Hell went. That is, if he ignored the all-too-familiar reek of burnt flesh and the corpse of Shade slumped forward in an otherwise inviting armchair. _Just my luck,_ thought Constantine, before taking a closer look. Shade was breathing, but unconscious. 

Constantine was relieved. Not because he personally cared about Shade’s well-being, mind you. He had pegged the Changing Man as the weakest link of their little band of misfits from day one. No, Constantine told himself he was relieved because he wouldn’t have to catch an attitude from Madame Xanadu. He’d never admit it, but that woman scared him. 

“Lovely letter you left for me,” Constantine commented, checking his pockets for cigarettes. His hand brushed the spine of a book. Must be slip-things-in-Johnny’s-pockets day. He’d look at it later. 

“What can I say?” Ellie replied, the slightly upturned corners of her lips not matching her hard, serious eyes. “I need your help. And you owe me.” 

He withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, hoping his hands wouldn’t noticeably shake if he held the little cardboard box tight enough. “We humans aren’t so keen on deals and who-owes-who-what, compared to _you_ lot.” 

Ellie heaved a frustrated sigh as Constantine lit his cigarette. “John, I’d appeal to your decency.” She rose from her seated position on the bed and crossed to behind the armchair. She continued, “But, because we both know you don’t have any, I was thinking I’d appeal to his.” She slapped Shade’s cheek, and his eyelids fluttered open. 

Shade muttered something too low for either of them to hear. 

“What was that?” Constantine noticed Ellie’s tone sweeten when addressing Shade. Tricksy succubus. 

Shade’s eyes widened as he lifted his head. He wasn’t looking at anything, anyone. Eyes locked forward. And he looked like shit, with his hair a tangled mess and the beginnings of a beard dusting his cheeks. His face was drawn. Constantine could swear Shade looked several years older than when he’d last seen him. The color and pattern of his coat were moving with an uncharacteristic sluggishness. “Cold peanut butter,” Shade repeated. 

Well, there went Constantine’s hope of having a coherent conversation. 

Shade pressed his fingers to his eyes. “My mouth tastes like cold peanut butter,” he said. It tasted familiar, but a bad kind of familiar. It was the same sensation as your gut clenching in reaction to a face or name long forgotten, that little feeling that says you need to stay away. “I…” Shade looked up, at Ellie, at Constantine. Who looked filthier than usual, Shade noted with mild surprise. “When did you get here?” he asked. He was readjusting to reality, his thoughts like butterflies flitting outside his head, shifting to smoke as he tried to grasp one or another. Cold peanut butter. M-Vest malfunctions always took it out of him. 

Ellie cut in. “He got here just a minute ago,” Shade heard from behind him. “He’s the friend we were waiting on.” 

Constantine scoffed in reply. “She’s a succubus, mate. I wouldn’t trust a thing she says, if I was you.” 

Ellie voiced what Shade was feeling. “I could say the same about you, John.” 

Even though Shade didn’t really consider himself part of the magic community, it had been hard to avoid the gossip about Constantine, especially in the last few days. Everyone seemed to have some story that ended with the street clothes sorcerer sneaking into their lives and sowing the seeds of discord. Not that Shade felt things could get much worse for him, but even without considering the recent dispute over Constantine stealing Zatanna’s spells, he wasn’t eager to place more trust in Constantine than he absolutely had to. “Let’s hear what she wants,” Shade said. 

Constantine threw up his hands in front of him, in a gesture that said, _Fine. It’s you’re funeral._

Ellie left her spot behind the chair, moving to a place near the bed where she could see both Constantine and Shade’s faces. “First thing’s first—I can get you out of here. You do this for me, and you’ll be back home, safe and sound.” 

That’s when Constantine cut in again. “You’ll have to do better than that, Ellie. Shade here can teleport. It’s just his manners keeping us here. Once you’re done, we’ll be beaming out of here faster than a bat out of hell.” Constantine doubted his bluff was in any way close to the reality of the situation, but he was hedging his bets on Shade being smart enough to play along. 

Shade piped up, “That isn’t quite how the M-Vest works.” He ignored the nasty look Constantine threw at him and kept talking. “I can get almost anywhere within one dimension with the vest, but I need something different for travelling between worlds. I need to find a doorway to the Area of Madness.” Shade looked directly at Constantine. “It’s not a place just anyone can survive.” 

Constantine released a single, mirthless laugh. “I’ve been through things you can hardly imagine, Shade. If your spooky Area of Madness is anything like that poor excuse for a hotel I had to trudge through to get here, you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about me.” 

“What?” replied Shade. 

“Sounds like you might want to hear my offer, John,” Ellie said. “And, please, no more interruptions.” 

“Fine,” replied Constantine, flippantly. 

“Go ahead,” replied Shade. 

“Thank you,” Ellie started, flashing a smile Shade’s way. “Constantine, you’re already familiar with this story, so this isn’t for your benefit.” 

Constantine rolled his eyes. He knew he’d have to deal with her backhanded comments for the rest of his life. All because he used her so he could reaquire the demon taint he had lost in one of the more absurd gambits of his career. 

“Shade, you have a poetic soul, so I’m sure you’ll see my side of things,” Ellie continued. “Everything Constantine says about me is true. I’m a succubus. And I’m one of the best succubi down here and I’m very proud of it.” That’s how she started her story. 

She was right. It was one Constantine knew. Hell, he had been there for the grisly conclusion. He tried to study Shade’s expression while Ellie described her seduction of an angel—Tali, About how she fell in love with him. About how she became pregnant, about how she came to Constantine for help. About how her lover and her child were murdered by agents of Heaven itself, just moments after the child’s birth. Shade was leaning forward in the chair, his countenance stony, not so much as looking at Ellie. 

Ellie’s voice wavered in all the right places. She paused to collect herself in all the right places. If she were any other demon, Constantine would have called it a good show, but not enough to hoodwink him, thanks. He had been just a room over when the heavenly host, cruel bastards that they could be, slaughtered the newborn. Ellie’s voice petered away after she forced out that part of the story. 

She let out a shaky breath. Her head was lowered, her hair obscuring her face. She was half-sitting on the edge of the bed, arms folded. “So,” she continued. “This is what I have to ask of you.” She looked at Constantine, her expression that of naked desperation, her eyes glistening. She moved her gaze to Shade, who didn’t seem to be seeing her at all. “During Tali and I’s first dalliances, he gave me a gift. It was a sephalica. From Heaven itself. It’s hard to keep anything that isn’t native to here alive for long. I’ve kept that plant alive for years of your time. 

“And someone took it from me. I haven’t a clue who, but whoever did it isn’t trackable by my means. At first I thought it was you, John, but then you practically knocked on my front door, just _begging_ for safe passage.” 

“I don’t recall so much as thinking your name,” Constantine replied, mentally running through the names he invoked in the first stall of the men’s toilet at the Oblivion Bar. 

Ellie smiled at him, her deep red lips creating dimples in her cheeks. _The lipstick!_ Constantine thought. He had assumed it was Zatanna’s. 

Ellie continued. “Because I don’t know who has the sephalica, I don’t know what they might be planning on doing with it.” 

“And what are _you_ planning to do with it?” Constantine asked. 

“Nothing. If I planned on using it for anything, I would have done it long before now.” She sighed. “It’s all I have left of him. Of my Tali. I don’t want to lose all I have.” It was a mournful plea. 

She wasn’t lying. Constantine knew her well enough to know that much. He was tempted to take a break from playing the part of the cold bastard, to run her errands, to call it a favor. 

“Will you help me?” The question was for Shade. “In exchange for safe passage back to Earth, of course.” 

Shade sat silent, for a moment. Constantine examined his face. Brow furrowing just a touch. Jaw relaxing almost imperceptibly. Eyes refocusing, flitting to Ellie’s face. “No." He rose to his feet. "You’re on your own.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments, kudos, and critique are all much appreciated! I honestly am really concerned about getting Constantine's accent not _too_ wrong, so if any of you notice anything wonky with that, feel free to tell me so I can fix it! Thanks again!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, and this is the chapter where the title starts making sense (at least to me), so here's a link to the relevant song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOFC2tL9kUU  
> Also, buckle up, cuz this one's longer than normal.  
> Also also, I recently realized that this whole thing is probably way more inspired by my current DnD campaign than I initially realized, which is gonna be wrapping up soon (we're in the middle of a boss fight with Satan rn), so I dedicate this fic to my wonderful, patient, and extremely creative Dungeon Master. May he never find this. ALSO: Many many thanks to @dragon_anony on twitter for her help, as always!

“Will you help me? In exchange for safe passage back to Earth, of course.” Ellie’s question weighed heavy on Shade. A dead lover was…Jesus, it was nauseatingly familiar. By Meta, he felt that agony every waking moment, and quite a few of the non-waking ones, too. 

He had spent Ellie’s spiel staring straight ahead. He knew that what lay before him was the bed, the bedspread, the cave wall slightly beyond that, but his eyes were glazed over, not really seeing any of that. He was too focused on hovering just outside of emotions, not letting himself get dragged in like a spaceship into a black hole. He was both sick of feeling empty and sick of feeling so full of grief and self-pity and a million other tiny things that if he made the slightest movement something terrible could spill out. 

“No,” Shade replied. “You’re on your own.” It was selfish of him, but to hell with it. He already barely slept at night, and sometimes his dreams clung to him even in the waking world. 

It was selfish of him, but he was so strung out on sadness and guilt and fear and mentally replaying each and every scrap of a good memory he had of Kathy that he was no longer sure if his recollections were accurate or if his tendency towards hyperbole had warped his memories. He was too fucking exhausted to care how selfish it might be. 

Shade looked at a wide-eyed Constantine, who let the red embers from the tip of his forgotten cigarette rain to the ground. “Think you can take the Area of Madness? It’s time to find out,” he said, turning to leave. 

“You wait just a damned second.” Ellie’s teeth were gritted, her hands balled into fists. Her eyes were glowing red, the black irises in the middle like holes drilled into her head. To Shade, this was the first time Ellie looked anywhere approaching demonic. 

He looked at her, and if he felt any less like an abandoned car bumper after a hit-and-run, maybe he would have been frightened. As it stood, this was nothing more than another thing he was caught up in against his will. An average day in the life of this Changing Man. “The answer is no,” he said. 

“Know this, Shade—” Her teeth had sharpened to razors. “—If you breathe to a soul a single word I told you, I will riddle your sleep with nightmares. I will turn every bite you eat to dust and every drop you drink to vinegar. I will whisper the exact thing it will take to turn your allies to enemies. And when you die, I will drag your soul down here and I will rip out your fingernails and clip off your eyelids and dismantle you bit by bit for all eternity before turning you over to a demon twenty times worse than I.” 

Shade didn’t doubt she would. “Fine,” he replied. “Your secret’s safe. May we leave?” 

“You may go.” If her eyes were fire, her voice was ice. “Pray you don’t run into any less benevolent creatures.” 

“Yeah,” Shade replied, voice void of emotion. 

With that, Shade exited Ellie’s cozy little slice of Hell, and into a jarringly cold stone labyrinth. He heard Constantine’s shoes against the ground before he heard his voice. “Christ, Shade, and I thought I was the cold bastard!” Shade wasn’t sure if it was cigarette smoke from his mouth fogging the air or if that was how much his breath reeked of tobacco. 

“Not in the mood, John,” Shade replied. He turned down a different path. Every so often, there would be a torch or a small river of lava or a glowing crack in the wall that would illuminate the network of caves. It wasn’t _well_ lit, but it there just enough light to see where forward was. 

One of Constantine’s brows quirked at the use of his first name. “And I’m having a grand old time, Rac,” he curled the “R” more than necessary when he spat it. He put his hand on Shade’s shoulder, prompting them both to stop walking. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we might want to run Ellie’s errands.” 

“Oh, so for all your posturing, you _do_ have a heart. I’ll keep that in mind.” Shade shrugged off Constantine’s hand. 

“Fuck off, Shade. If it were up to me, I would’ve left you to rot. But here I am playing fetch for Madame Xanadu because she spouted some bollocks about the end of the world. As much as I hate the idea, we need to work together, so get off your high horse.” Ugh, Constantine had never given anyone a lecture before, not even his niece, and it left a bitter taste on his tongue. 

Shade crossed his arms and looked at his feet. “Fine,” he said, glancing back up at Constantine. “But my plan A is still going through the Area of Madness. Take it or leave it. If that doesn’t work—” Shade averted his eyes. “—we can try the plant thing.” He returned his gaze to Constantine’s face. “Now follow me if you still want to see what an uncut dose of insanity is like.” 

“Hats off if it can measure up to the shit I’ve seen,” Constantine replied. He wasn’t sure how seriously he should take Shade’s bravado. On the one hand, he felt a little sorry for the guy. Yeah, Constantine had gotten morbidly accustomed to those around him dropping dead, but it still gutted him every last time it happened. And Shade was taking the death of this bird Kathy like a regular person would take getting hit by a freight train. “Right,” Constantine continued. “How are we going to _find_ this doorway of yours?” 

“I can feel it,” Shade replied, continuing on the same path he had locked onto before Constantine interrupted him. “Or, um, the M-Vest tells me where it is. It’s hard to explain.” 

“Ah,” replied Constantine, following Shade’s lead through the tunnels. He was trying his best to ignore the ever-increasing black marks in the stone. “So, what, it’ll start beeping when we get there?” 

“Sometimes it does,” Shade replied, turning down a narrow tunnel, so Constantine was forced to walk behind him. 

“Ha.” 

“I’m not joking,” Shade replied, glancing over his shoulder, the lower half of his face obscured by his coat’s collar. “But usually it’s just a feeling. It’s like trying to figure out where the draft in a house is, but instead of a house it’s the corporeal world, and the draft is the more idiosyncratic bits of the collective unconsciousness.” 

“Ah,” said Constantine. It made enough sense—about as much as the writings of Aleister Crowley he had devoured as a schoolboy did. And it certainly added up with his own limited experience with Madness. 

Constantine let the conversation die when Shade did nothing to resurrect it. If there had been silence, it would have felt like the loudest thing in the world. Lucky for them, the caves played host to all manner of sounds. Skittering sounds. Scratching sounds. High-pitched, keening sounds, just quiet enough that Constantine couldn’t be sure if it was wind or a distant animal or the cries of the damned. 

The black marks were getting more frequent, too. The further they went, the clearer a pattern became. They formed dark lines across the ground, with some brushing up the side of the cave. They didn’t look as if they were perfect lines painted in a steady hand with a brush dipped in black ink. They looked like skid marks. In the poorly lit cave, they almost resembled scabbed-over gashes, but there was no doubt that they were in fact skid marks. 

“Shade,” he finally spoke up. “Are you seeing this?” 

Shade stopped walking forward. “Yes?” It wasn’t an answer so much as it was a request for clarification. 

“Everything about this screams bad news,” Constantine replied. “Have you any idea what we’re walking into?” 

“No idea.” 

That made Constantine bristle. He could admit that he played things by ear, more often than not, but he’d rather depend on himself than on anyone else. 

Shade continued, “But we’re almost there. I promise.” Shade couldn’t see very far ahead of them, but he could see the black tire tracks crisscrossing the ground below. He could see the small, furry corpse Constantine had kicked, and where his line of sight ended, he could see more shapes that could be more roadkill. The tunnel reeked of ripe corpses, but that was of secondary importance to the feeling of being this close to a Doorway. 

Every Doorway to the Area of Madness felt a little different. Each was as unique as a stitched-up injury, and Shade was looking to yank out those stitches and dive into the wound. This one made Shade feel light, floating. Less like he was made of air and more like his skin was made of netting, holding all his insides in. He felt like his eyes, his teeth, his mind, his self were all floating, and he felt lighter and lighter the closer he stepped to the doorway. 

To Constantine, Shade looked wide-eyed, shaky. Distracted and completely spaced-out. The air around him shivered and swam same as the air coming off a charcoal grill. But Constantine could pick up on a little of what Shade was keyed into and couldn’t argue with him. To him, it felt like being back in that hotel. Like back in Ravenscar. So, forward they trekked, keeping track of how far they’d come by the bodies of animals scattered throughout the cave. 

Splayed across the floor was a raccoon’s intestines, white and crimson like ribbon candy. A squirrel’s body was curled up in a corner, its head surrounded by a halo of blood. A deer lay on its side, its legs stiff and straight in the air, its stomach bloated, its eyes wide and cloudy and blue as a June morning. A few bodies turned into several turned into tens turned into dozens. Furry and still and very deceased. The tunnels widened to make room for these animals, but the way that was clear enough to walk on remained narrow enough for Constantine to continue to be forced to follow directly behind Shade. 

They came to a dead end. 

“We’re here,” Shade said. 

In front of them sat what looked like round, pitch black pillars, reaching up as far as they could go. Shade reached out his arms. He felt an electric jolt run through him as he laid his hands on the flaking rubber of the columns. They were stacks of tires. He could just barely feel the patterns they had once sported; they were so worn down. But there was no denying it. This was the doorway. 

“Doesn’t look like much,” Constantine remarked. 

“Give me a second,” Shade replied, running his hands into the crevices of the makeshift columns. He could feel the grit that covered them biting into his palms. His hands. When did they start shaking this much? Didn’t matter. They were almost out. 

“Need help?” Constantine asked. 

Shade felt something, then. A little hole. He couldn’t see it, but it _felt_ bright and glittering. “Got it,” he replied, forcing his fingers through the hole, drawing it out, ripping it open. 

With a sound that Shade and Constantine could both feel vibrate through their chests, the hole opened up into a perfect rectangular passageway, lined on all sides by discarded tires. Inside the doorway whirled colors and shapes Constantine couldn’t even begin to describe, but something inside him felt that he knew this place. That everyone knew this place, either intimately or in passing. This was the Area of Madness. 

“Follow me,” Shade said, stepping through the Doorway. 

* * *

Constantine was hurled a good ten feet from the Doorway, back into the network of caves. He hit the ground, rubble and dirt slicing and sticking to him. He heard Shade hit the ground with a _thunk!_ a little way off. It wasn’t just that, though. He heard something else land. 

“You _BASTARD!_ ” The sound of skin connecting with skin. Constantine was a little glad that, for once, he wasn’t the BASTARD! in question. He rolled over to see Shade fighting someone who appeared to also be Shade. Leave it to a poet to make a metaphor literal. 

As for Shade, there was something almost joyously self-destructive in feeling his own throat close as he kept his hands firmly around Hades’ neck. “You killed her, you _BASTARD!_ ” Shade found himself struggling to yell. And then the feeling of being strangled was replaced by a skinny arm, one hand on his shoulder, prying Shade off Hades from behind. 

“That’s enough of that.” Shade could smell the tobacco on Constantine’s breath. “You’re turning blue, mate.” 

Hades coughed and gagged, trying to refill his lungs. 

Constantine continued, “Now you tell me what the _hell_ is going on.” 

“I’d like to know, too,” Hades chimed in, sitting up. 

Shade was trying to catch his breath. He wasn’t sure if he was panting from just the asphyxiation or from pure rage. It had been a long time since Shade had felt anything but ambivalent, but here, now, he felt an anger so deep and so hot it had boiled off anything else. He knew he couldn’t speak for screaming or crying or something, so silent he stayed. 

Constantine kept his arms around the Shade he had wrested off the other Shade. There was something animal in the demeanor of _this_ Shade that he didn’t want to see much more of, all things considered. Constantine took in his surroundings—the Doorway hadn’t spit them back out in the same place they had entered it from. This cave was much roomier, and it certainly smelled better. From somewhere outside the cave came a warm glow, its origins unseen, but it lit everything well enough for Constantine to see that this other Shade wasn’t exactly like the Shade he had come down here to get. 

Hades was rising to his feet, shaking off his coat, and also taking stock of the cave. The obvious difference between him and Shade was in how Hades had his hair pulled back into a ponytail. But less obvious was in the angles of their faces. It was almost imperceptible, but Constantine could swear that this new person’s face was just a little sharper than Shade’s, a little more angular. He could also see that the little grey book he had found in his pocket earlier was laying on the stone floor, pages open. 

That’s when Shade’s head was thrown back against Constantine’s shoulder, loosening Constantine’s grip on him. Over them both stood Hades, fist closed, arm extended in the follow-through of the punch he had just landed on Shade’s cheek. A prominent red mark was painting itself across Hades’ cheek, in the same spot he had socked Shade. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Hades hissed, before Shade jammed his fist into Hades’ solar plexus. 

Constantine wedged his body between the…clones? Flesh golems? Estranged twins? “STOP,” he said, firmly. 

Shade stood still, fists at his sides so tight that his own fingernails were starting to hurt. His breathing was so deep that cold air of the cave was like breathing in fiberglass. The knowledge that Hades could also feel it did a little to assuage his wrath. Next to his foot, he saw the little grey book. “Whose is that?” 

Constantine turned his head, followed Shade’s line of sight. “That? Mine,” he replied. 

Shade bent over, picked it up. Read the page it was open to. 

Constantine heard Shade let out a long breath behind him, before he heard him speak in a low, tense voice. “Why do you have Kathy’s diary?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You said you're me, but I know when I tell a lie,"-- _Stereogram_ , The Vincent Black Shadow  
> "And it's wrong and it's right and it's right and it's wrong,"-- _Ire Fire_ , Made Out of Babies  
> Once again, comments, kudos, and critique are all appreciated!  
> EDIT 7/27/19: Deleted a repeat paragraph


End file.
